Comparison of Rigid-Bodied Candidate Robots
We require an autonomous mobile robot platform that provides plenty of room to place the pressurized system to control the soft robot. The table below briefly compares the hardware specifications of both the KUKA youBot and a customized iRobot Create (similar to the rigid platform in Stokes, et. al., 2014). Based on this comparison, the youBot holds more potential than the Create with respect to many of the stated design criteria: ease of software development, sensor capability, mobility, ability to manipulate, and extensibility. We therefore choose the youBot at the sacrifice of two categories - size and cost - which is justified since the size and cost is still competitive with many customizable, sensor-rich and commercially-available autonomous robots available on today's market.
| Robot Type | iRobot Create with BeagleBoard onboard computer | KUKA youBot with single arm |
| On-board Computer | beagleboard-xM, AM37x 1GHz ARM processor, 512 MB RAM | Mini-ITX, Intel Atom D510 Dual Core 1.66 GHz, 2GB RAM, 32 GB SSD |
| Operating System | Linux | Linux |
| ROS Support | Limited | Good |
| Base Type | Two-wheel differential drive (nonholonomic drive) | Four omnidirectional wheels (holonomic drive) |
| Manipulator | None | 5 DOF arm with 2-finger gripper |
| Sensor Capability | Webcam, sonar | Extensible - RGB+D camera, LIDAR |
| Dimensions | 33.8 cm diameter x 8.8 cm height | 58 cm x 38 cm x 14 cm |
| Cost | ~$200 | ~$20K |
The KUKA youBot (pictured below) consists of an omnidirectional platform, with a five degree-of-freedom manipulator with a two-finger gripper. The arm is an attractive feature, because it allows a way for the soft robot to be deployed from a convenient location atop the robot, and also allows the soft robot to be retrieved once it grasps the object of interest. Our youBot is also equipped with an ASUS Xtion Pro RGB+D (color image + depth image) camera similar to the Microsoft Kinect. The youBot is provided with open interfaces and includes ROS and comes pre-configured with controller drivers. The wheels are omnidirectional, allowing the robot to move freely in any direction with any orientation.
image source: http://www.kuka-labs.com/